1. Smooth jump cuts when speaking to the camera

Editing content for platforms such as YouTube is very different from traditional media. Cutting out the silences and empty moments is crucial to keep the viewer engaged.  It's not a simple as just cutting the part between where you stop speaking and when you start speaking again. This creates an uncomfortable experience for the viewer. When editing vlog style videos, where you have someone speaking directly to the camera, I would advise to have the last syllable and first syllable of the next sentence match up in a J-Cut.  If it still sounds quite unnatural experiment with moving the B side further down the timeline with 1-3 frames.

2. Montages should have a purpose

YouTube is full of cliché drone shots, coffee b-roll,  120fps for the sake of slow-motion. If there is no clear why, the content will slow down, and possibly damage the experience of your video. Each shot should contribute to the progression of your story. Montages are perfect for an emotional pay-off once you've had the right set-up. Ensure your shots have a justifiable reason to be there. A favorite director of mine to study on the usage of montages, is the feature film director Guy Ritchie.

3. Manage your time and creative energy

If you have 8 hours to produce a video, you can risk editing 5hours on that one segment with only 3 hours left. Leaving your creative juices burned up before you've finished the video. To edit engaging content you need to spread out your energy over the entire video. Lay out the entire foundation first. Then you can make a better, informed decision on what music fits the video. As a creative it's easy to get inspired by a certain part of a soundtrack and wanting to edit the perfect montage to that small part of the song. That's why it's important to first get the groundwork done. Then you can spend precious time on getting those perfect butter smooth cuts.

Always keep your viewer entertained and leave them wanting for more.

Quality over quantity. Yes, since YouTube is trying to compete with Netflix, the algorithm is promoting longform (10min) content so that they can place more ads in between. But if you analyze top performing channels ( without casting judgement on the type of content and audience) you'll find that quality short form content often performs better. A good edited video of 3 to 5 minutes often leaves the viewer wanting for more. Especially compared to longer 10+ minute videos that leave you exhausted. Once you want more as a viewer, what do you do? Yes you guessed it: binge-watching! The more people binge-watch your content, the more the algorithm will push your content towards new viewers.